The Survivor

The sun has just begun to rise over the sleepy city of Melbourne, Australia, and in the shadows of the city a man walks alone, his gaze distant, his mind wandering. Leaving the ordered streets behind, he ascends a staircase onto a bridge, and continues his walk. A train rolls by beneath, filled with passengers on their way to work, and voices suddenly surround him – voices and beats. The aboriginal sounds dance from speaker to speaker on the bridge, as ahead of the man looms the colossal stadium, the gigantic shrine to sports, the holiest of sporting places on the earth, here in Melbourne… the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Eddie Hayes makes his approach in silence, soaking it all in. He approaches the gate, but it’s too early, there’s no one present, and instead he makes his way around to an entrance where a lone security guard waits. Without a word, he flashes a pass, and the guard opens the door, and Eddie slips inside. He doesn’t have to go far forward. In the hall which will be soon lined with people, WWG production equipment has been placed. They haven’t begun to set up yet, leaving the ground itself naked. Down the stairs he walks, looking up and around, dwarfed by the modern coliseum, the sheer size of it taking his breath away for a second.

He climbs the fence, landing softly on turf – turf being heavily managed to protect it, the Australian football season, the cricket world cup, right around the corner. In the seats he sees producers scrambling with mats, where the temporary seating will be placed on the ground. Most of them ignore him. He gets the feeling he’s not the first one to come out here, and strolls into the middle of the ground, soaking it all in, imagining what is to come. He speaks.

EDDIE HAYES
This is it. I can feel it all around me already. There’s not a bigger stage in the world. A hundred thousand people, they say it can hold. I don’t doubt them. These stands, stretching so high into the sky… filled with people, roaring in support, crying in dismay… the hollow seats, as they sit now, echo the voices of those that came before. This is a coliseum, make no mistake. I feel like a gladiator, raising my eyes to the emperor, waiting for the chaos to begin… this place, this place is special. But not for me. Not for guys like me. Kids like me, we didn’t grow up dreaming of being here, proving our elite capabilities for the hordes and drunken masses. Kids like me, we hoped never to be in a place like this – to come here, that would be a failure. We would be beaten. Laughed at. Mocked. This holy Mecca, a haven for the brutish, the athletically gifted but mentally slow. I never wanted to be here, or in any place like this… but this is where life has brought me. I find myself confused, my desires having shifted in the last six months of my life. I wasn’t ever meant to be here. It is not who I am… but it is who I will be. Who I must be. For the freaks, for the geeks, for the kids like me.

He takes another look around the stadium, and laughs to himself under his breath, almost as if remarking on the absurdity of the situation. His feet planted on the ground of champions. And then there was Eddie, a champion in name only.

EDDIE HAYES
I’ve made no secret of my past. My lack of ability. My lack of talent. Every step I’ve taken forward since coming here, I’ve had to earn. I had to work hard. Okay, at first I was the joker, at first I was getting away with tricks and bending the rules to my advantage. Some may call it cheating. And apparently a lot of people think I’m an **** for that. But I did what I did to get noticed. I did what I did because I had to. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here today, I wouldn’t have the chance to become something far greater than I ever dreamed of as a kid. I’m not an athlete – or maybe, I should say I wasn’t. But for months now, I’ve trained, harder and better than anyone else. From a guy who had never wrestled in his life, the guy that was picked last for every game at school, the guy who was beat up every day – from that, I have become something strong. Something fierce. You can hear it when other people talk. They laugh, they say I’m not that great, that I’m inexperienced and weak, and they’re right. I’m not as strong as I could be. But say one thing for Eddie Hayes, say he’s a survivor. I proved that, if nothing else.

And surviving… that’s just what I’m going to have to do. An Elimination Chamber will be erected here shortly, and with it comes five other competitors all fighting for the chance to become the WWG World Champion. Well, four trying to earn, one trying to keep it. And they all have their stories. Wretched Nobody, the monster that everyone fears. Trevor Blackwell, the new, loudmouthed ****. Alexander Lord, the rising star, the future of WWG. Abram Adams, the confused and lost. And Rayven, the crazy **** with attitude. What will they say of Eddie Hayes? Eddie Hayes, the techno-genius? Eddie Hayes, the **** of the year? Eddie Hayes, the weak and pathetic? No, no, I might be all of these things to some people, but the important thing is that I am Eddie Hayes, the survivor. In this match, in this Elimination Chamber, I don’t have to beat all five of my opponents. I just have to beat one. I just have to stay up, stay conscious, long enough that one on one, I have my chance. Wretched Nobody can tear Alexander Lord apart, but get blindsided by Trevor Blackwell, who gets kicked in the nuts by Rayven, et cetera, et cetera, unlike it’s just me and whoever is left. My strategy is not to eliminate everyone. That… that I can’t do. But as I’ve shown, in my battles with Alvarlegar Odinsson, I can hold on. I held on for longer than anyone imagined. I succumbed, yes, but in those days, I had no training. I was making a name for myself from my out of the ring abilities, not how many flips I could do, or how hard I can kick.

But we all gotta change some day. We all gotta learn to adapt, to evolve, to become something new, something different, and better. Evolution doesn’t come easy – first, you have to survive. So I nailed the first part. I found out I had the constitution to do this, but that’s not a talent, that’s not a skill. Some people are born, able to dance and weave and dominate others as easily as anything. I’m not one of those guys, I had to work hard, so work is what I did. I became a champion, I defeated men and monsters, even my brother Titan, and still, you won’t give me the credit I deserve? Still, I am laughed at and ridiculed, the man they don’t believe can win the big one. I heard all the talk, when Titan had his shot. I heard all the talk when I had to help defend the team championship. I responded, I won those matches, THAT WAS ME! And still… still, some of you people laugh at me, treating me like a child. Or worse. But I’ve heard it all before. Every one of your jokes. Every one of your insecurities. “That kid is different, don’t talk to him”, that’s what they used to say, and they still say it. So began my crusade.

It’s not a new story. Eddie has spoken much of it before, but the growth, the journey has become much more obvious. From his ridiculous debut, to becoming a respectable wrestler not respected… a road well worn, but only half travelled. Frustration seeps in.

EDDIE HAYES
Without a cause, without something to fight for, I would’ve become nothing, but you, ALL OF YOU, you gave me that something. You broke me down, every day of my life. And when I rise, like a phoenix from the ashes or a burnt, broken life, what do you do? You continue the punishment. The harassment. Everything I am is still a joke to you. I blow up the stage, I steal from the company, I fight the biggest assholes around, even unskilled as I was, and STILL, I AM CALLED YOUR **** OF THE YEAR?! I didn’t fail, I never failed, it is all of you who failed me. I know there’s a few out there, a dedicated few that don’t want to come out of the shadows, who don’t want to show their faces or their support because they will suffer for it. So this, this is my chance to make it okay. This is for the geeks, the gingers, the downtrodden. This is for all those people persecuted for being themselves. This is not for me. Blackout was never about me, or my selfish wants and desires. I wanted to take something away from the world, something that we don’t need – but perhaps the monsters are something we deserve.

Ultimately, it will be the historians that decide whether Eddie Hayes was right in his crusade – whether the world and WWG was as full as monsters as he believed. But the conviction has never wavered, he sounds a confident man, not a crazy man, or a zealot, although he pushes the boundary.

EDDIE HAYES
When I step into the WWG ring at Barely Legal, when I am locked in that Elimination Chamber with five of the most talented people in the company, and people are questioning what I, of all people, am doing in there, I will have nothing on my mind but winning that match. I did what I had to in order to become a champion, but that’s not enough. Being a champion has meant very little, and while it’s an honour to have my name forever in WWG history, it’s not the honour I want. I want to win the Elimination Chamber. I want to be the survivor. I want to be THE champion. Then, and only then, will I feel like I’ve achieved something. It’s amazing how much a goal can change. When I came here, all I wanted to do was teach these monsters and bullies a measure of respect, and I haven’t been able to do that. That’s why I have to stop being the guy, being the kid, being the loser no one likes or respects… and become the man, the champion. I didn’t want to make myself into an idol, I loved the idea of being an example, but it’s not enough – I have to earn the adoration of the people, I have to earn the respect of the beasts and then I can begin changing things for the better. When I become champion, things will be different. All the monsters, all the assholes, they’ll be focused on me, I won’t have to seek them out any more. I won’t be regarded as the chickenshit ambusher that you all think I am.

I’ll stand up. I’ll stand against whatever comes my way. Any obstacle, I can overcome. Any threat, I will survive. You’ll see, you’ll all see, at Barely Legal, I will become more than you thought I ever could be, more than I thought I ever could be. And there’s no better place for me to do it. Me, a loser, a geek, the kind of guy that belongs behind the counter, not the guy that belongs in the main event. But this is an opportunity I’ve earned, and on this hallowed turf, in this glorious stadium, on this ancient ground, a modern battlefield, and locked in a chamber of horrors – THIS is the time that was made for me, made for my vision. Everything I stand for, every fight I want to fight, every battle done and dusted and every battle yet to come, it is all defined by what I do here. And I will do exactly what I have always done in the face of adversity. I will do what must be done.

I will survive.

Still in the middle of the ground, Eddie Hayes sweeps around, taking one last look at the emptiness of the stands. In just days, the people will come. They will flood through the stadium and begin their chants, and cheers, and all this he thinks about, and smiles. Maybe he finally made it.